The advent of what we call technology, in general, has been impacting the human race for ages. Every other century (and maybe a decade in today’s world), we see a step jump in the things that are achieved with Technology. And Artificial Intelligence is the current game changer in this regard.

Artificial Intelligence is like an exoskeleton for the human brain – it can add dimensions of learning and understanding which are not easily achievable by the human brain alone. Many use cases of the past which were unachievable by human analytical brains alone are now becoming possible with the use of AI. 

In India, as a country that boasts of its huge human capital with technical expertise, it is but natural that AI will find resonance in the minds of Indians. With the various supportive policies of the Government and the technology adoption that has happened at an unprecedented pace, India is the new playground for AI.

We see many AI-based Startups in various areas in India today which are entering the Unicorn club. Even during the pandemic year 2020, we saw new entrants into this club and it is anticipated that this number will soon reach 100 by 2025. In 2020, 87% of all the deep tech investments were in AI/ML start-ups. Further, 14 per cent of total investments in 2020 were in deep tech start-ups, up from 11 per cent in 2019[1].  

In the early days of AI, we saw the adoption coming in the form of user behaviour analysis, smart personal assistants, mainly text AI. With the supporting hardware now becoming increasingly available, we are seeing more complex use cases of Vision AI, IoT/Robotics, and Augmented/Virtual Reality /Mixed reality coming up and getting adopted at a wider scale. 

The domains where these use cases can be applied is also expanding. In the retail and CPG industry, as an example, we have built solutions like the virtual trial of garments which combines the power of AI and AR. 

The manufacturing and Automotive industry is expecting AI to help them create personalised virtual experiences for their customers and employees among other applications. The banking and finance sector is actively using AI for customer stickiness, and it will see an improved adoption in security and risk analysis.  

With the pandemic, the industries like Education, Travel, Tourism and Hospitality are seeing a major revamp. Not only is personalization being taken to a completely new level in this sphere, but the market is also wide open for launching creative ways to learn any concept/skill, or to encourage tourism through virtual means. The target market is huge because age is no bar when it comes to virtual space. 

Media and Communications form the backbone of many of these solutions in the AI space and it is also an evolving field. With networks going virtual, there is immense scope to create fundamentally differentiated communication services and AI will play a major role in this domain. Media delivery has also changed post the pandemic and providing meaningful content cannot be done without AI.

The NP-hard problems of supply chain optimization and many such issues in industries like travel and transportation are best solved through AI in combination with Quantum Computing. 

Healthcare and Life Sciences and Agritech, Energy and Natural Resources are the few industries where AI is being challenged. As an example, for Crop protection from pests or animals, we are applying vision-based AI to identify and scare animals. Since we are dealing with nature which learns at a faster pace, the AI solution will need to evolve to use random techniques, else it will fail!

These and other unique use cases offered in these domains will surely intrigue the AI experts and I would urge the community to come forward and create solutions in this space.

Data is always pointed out as the main problem for enabling AI, but we look at this as an opportunity to apply technology to enable data collection and to create required data marketplaces.

We believe that the time for new algorithms has come in the AI space. India and Indians are very uniquely placed in this case to live up to the expectations, as

1. The ancient Indian culture of knowledge and enquiry is built into our psyche. Although we may not realise it, and maybe it has been subdued because of the education system and/or the nature of work we do, it’s just the matter of setting ourselves free.
2. The fringe element that India provides is unique in the world. If a system works for India, we can rest assured that it will work for the world.
3. The world today has very high hopes from India and are ready to invest here
4. India itself provides a huge marketplace for the products and services we are building
5. The Government has come up with supportive policies, and consortiums like NASSCOM are creating a conducive environment for the brightest brains to create these unique solutions.

So it is an onus on the start-ups in India to come out and be visible on this stage. The NASSCOM AI Game Changers is an excellent platform that can give you the visibility to bring your solutions to the fore.

While we are all gung-ho about the immense possibilities of AI, this quote by the co-founder of Skype is very relevant.

Building advanced AI is like launching a rocket. The first challenge is to maximize acceleration, but once it starts picking up speed, you also need to focus on steering.  -Jaan Tallinn

As it is important to build the use cases with AI, it is also important to ensure that they are ethically aligned. The steering has to be firmly held as we usher the world into a meaningful direction.

At the Makers lab, our main area of research is inspired by neuroscience, and how the brain’s algorithm can be translated to new-age AI algorithms which use fewer data and less processing power. We are working with the World Economic Forum to define and pilot Ethics in AI. Language is another area where new algorithms like BERT are being tried out and we are implementing CNN based AI Vision use cases in various domains.

We urge the uber-cool startups working in the AI space to take advantage of our open innovation culture to reach out through various channels like the AI Game Changers program and make your mark in this world!

Author of this article is a Selection Panel member of AI Gamechangers.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay